y difference to Joan and
me. But why hasn't she been over to see me, Mary?"

"Oh, dad's sore at her because she put her foot down flat when she
heard it was fixed for her to marry Earl. She told dad to take his
sheep and go to the devil--she was going to go away and work somewhere
else. He made her go home and stay there like a rabbit in a
box--wouldn't let her have a horse."

"Of course; I might have known it. I wonder if she knows I'm up?"

"She knows, all right. Charley slips word to her."

"Charley's a good fellow, and so are you," Mackenzie said, giving Mary
his hand.

"You'll get her, and it's all right," Mary declared, in great
confidence. "It'll take more than bread and water to tame Joan."

"Is that all they're giving her?"

"That's dad's idea of punishment--he's put most of us on bread and
water one time or another. But mother has ideas of her own what a kid
ought to have to eat."

Mary smiled over the recollection, and Mackenzie joined her. Joan
would not grow thin with that mother on the job.

They talked over the prospects ahead of Joan and himself in the most
comfortable way, leaving nothing unsaid that hope could devise or
courage suggest. A long time Mackenzie remained with his little
sister, who would have been dear to him for her own sweet sake if she
had not been dearer because of her blood-tie to Joan. When he was
leaving, he said:

"If anybody gets curious about my coming over to see you, Mary, you
might let them think I'm making love to you. It would help both of
us."

Mary turned her eyes without moving her head, looking at him across
her nose in the arch way she had, and smiled with a deep knowingness.

"Not so bad!" said she.

They let it go at that, understanding each other very well indeed.

Mackenzie returned to Dad's camp thinking that the way to becoming a
flockmaster was a checkered one, and filled with more adventures,
harsh and gentle, than he ever had believed belonged to his
apportionment in life. But he could not blame Tim Sullivan for placing
Reid above him in rating on account of the encounters they had shared,
or for bending down a bit in his manner, or taking him for a soft one
who could be led into long labors on the promise of an uncertain
reward.

Truly, he had been only second best all the way through, save for that
"lucky blow," as Tim called it, that had laid Swan out in the first
battle. Now Swan and he were quits, a blow on each side, nobody debtor
any